The Way I Used to Be

Part 3 – Junior Year

“YOU REMEMBER THE PLAN, right?” Mara asks me as we pull into the gas station in her brand-new old car. Her dad gave her his beat-up brown Buick for her sixteenth birthday. It was the one he’d had since we were kids. But basically it was a guilt gift for being such a crappy father, for having a girlfriend, for canceling his weekends with Mara all the time.

“You really think this will work?” I check my lipstick in the rearview mirror just once more.

“I think so. I mean, if that sophomore can pull it off, we sure as hell can,” she reminds me. We’d overheard this girl bragging on the first day of school about how she’d been scoring beer from some guy who works weeknights at this particular gas station—all you have to do is flirt a little, she’d said. “Just act natural,” Mara whispers as we push through the door.

A bell dings over our heads. The air-conditioning blasts down on us and the fluorescent lights blare overhead. I meet eyes with the guy behind the counter. He grins, looking us both up and down, simultaneously, then down and up, from our heels, up our legs still tan from our summer spent in Mara’s pool, to our skirts, to our too-tight shirts.

“Hey,” Mara says in his direction, a little too casually. “Just a minute,” she says to me, “I have to grab a couple of things.” She walks toward the back of the store to the freezer section and casts a look at me over her shoulder.

I walk up to the counter, as planned. “Can I get twenty on pump four?” I ask him, sliding the bill across the counter. Mara said we need to make sure he knows we’re driving, that way we’ll seem older. “Can I also have a pack of menthol lights in the box, please?” I add, remembering to smile.

He looks at me closely, a knowing smirk, but reaches up over his head and pulls out a pack of cigarettes from a shelf I can’t see. “Anything else?” he asks, tossing the box onto the counter in the space between us.

I look behind me as Mara makes her way up the aisle with a six-pack in each hand.

“It’s all together,” Mara tells him as she sets the beer on the counter. “Oh, and these too,” she adds, picking up a packet of little foam tree air fresheners from the impulse-buy row of random merchandise littering the counter. She is still thinking the car is the key to all of this, and not our breasts and lips and bare legs. Still, he doesn’t ask any questions. He just reserves the right to gawk at us without needing to hide it.

I can feel Mara holding her breath as we pay. I can feel her holding her breath as she slips the trees and the pack of cigarettes into her purse. Holding her breath as she hurriedly ushers us out of the store. We don’t dare speak or even look at each other until we’re back inside the car. “Oh. My. God. Edy.” Mara says to me, barely moving her lips as she drives past the storefront windows and waves to the guy behind the counter, still watching us.

“Holy shit, I cannot believe we just pulled that off!” she says with a laugh as soon as she pulls out onto the road. “You were amazing!” she yells, wide eyed.

“So were you!”

“I was good, wasn’t I?” Lavishly, she stretches her arm out the window. “This is going to be the best year, Edy!” she shouts, looking over at me with an enormous smile. She turns the radio up so loud, I can’t even hear myself laughing.

“So where are we going again?” I yell.

“What?” she yells back.

“Where are we going?” I repeat, my voice straining.

“A surprise!” And then she turns down all the familiar roads we’ve been turning down our entire lives, past the churches and the fast-food chains and the car wash. And at the town-limit sign, just when I expect her to turn left, she keeps going straight. Every time we meet an intersection, I expect her to make a U-turn and go back. But she doesn’t.

I lower the volume on the radio. “Okay, really, where are we going?” I ask her again.

“It’s a surpri-i-ise,” she sings.

“I’m positive there is nothing in this town that will be a surprise! It’s literally a copy of ours, except it takes about eleven minutes to drive from one end to the other instead of ten.” I laugh. “It’s just as dull and boring as—”

“Not so fast, my little cynic,” Mara interrupts, shaking her finger at me with a grin, as she turns the wheel again and again, steering us down short, dark streets. “Okay.” She finally turns the radio off. “Look familiar?” she asks as she slows the car over the gravel parking lot.

“I can’t believe it—I completely forgot about this place, Mara,” I tell her, opening my car door before she’s even come to a complete stop.

I once believed this was the most magical place on the planet. I walk closer. It’s smaller now, it seems, than when we were kids, but still wonderful. The giant wooden playground is what we always called it, but it’s so much more than that. It’s a wooden castle the size of a Hollywood mansion, with towers and bridges and turrets and secret passageways. Elaborate swings in the shape of life-size horses with black rubber saddles.

“I knew you would love this.” Mara trudges up behind me with the beer. “Okay, how many rules are we breaking right now?” she asks as we approach the park-rules sign. “It’s past dusk so the park is officially closed—number one. No smoking—number two. We’re bringing in alcohol, number five, while simultaneously breaking rule number seven—no glass containers. That’s not too bad, actually.” Mara laughs.

We take the wooden drawbridge across the sand moat, climbing to the upper level. We sit down on one of the bridges that connect the two highest towers of the castle. We rest our backs against the wooden slats that form the sides of the bridge, and I look up as our eyes adjust to the star-filled sky.

“Remember how we would beg our parents to bring us here when we were little?” Mara asks, opening a beer for each of us.

“Yeah, and they would always, always say it was too far away! I had no idea how close this place was. It took, what, like fifteen minutes to get here? I always imagined it was hours and hours away!”

“Another lie.” Mara snorts, taking a swig of beer. “Just like Santa, the tooth fairy.” Swig. “Marriage,” she adds, staring into space. “Anyway.” She segues. “Yeah. I had no clue this place still existed—my dad brought me here to practice driving in the parking lot.”

“My parents still won’t even talk about letting me get my learner’s permit. So at least you have your license and a car—they get points for that, right?” I try.

“Whatever.” She shrugs, lighting a cigarette.

I want to remind her of the fact that her parents were never happy. That they made each other miserable—and her, too. That it’s been more than three years. And she needs to accept it. But I know these things are off limits, so I light a cigarette too, and look out over our little kingdom.

“You know, when we were kids I would climb up there”—I point with my bottle—“to the highest tower. Pretend I was some kind of princess. Trapped, waiting,” I tell her, exhaling a cloud of smoke.

She turns and smiles. “Waiting for what?”

“I don’t know. Life to begin? For something to happen!” I shout, hearing my voice echo.

“What are you talking about? We’re still waiting for that!” she shouts back, into the night sky.

“Okay, well, maybe we’re still waiting, but now we’re doing it with a car!” I laugh, raising my beer in the air.

“And alcohol!” Mara shouts, as we clink our bottles together. She falls forward with laughter, her beer sloshing out everywhere. And I laugh along with her, for no reason, louder than I think I’ve ever laughed in my life. Until it feels like my lungs might burst. Until it feels like freedom.

“Hey! Who’s up there?” someone yells from down below. Footsteps crunch through the cedar chips that line the ground, getting closer.

“Shhh-shhh-shhh,” Mara whispers, with her finger across her lips. “Cops?” she asks, turning toward me, her eyes wide with fear.

I press my face against the wooden slats and look down at two shadowy figures, one using his phone as a flashlight. Cops wouldn’t do that. “Not cops—two guys,” I whisper to Mara.

Mara slides up next to me and looks down at them. “Watch,” she whispers. She places two fingertips in the corners of her mouth and lets out the loudest, most eardrum-piercing whistle. I remember the summer when her dad first taught her how to do that, she couldn’t stop—for months, it was her response to any and every situation. Though I’m sure her dad didn’t intend for her to get drunk and trespass and whistle like that at strange guys.

The one with the phone aims the light in our direction. “Who is that?” he shouts.

Mara stands up and leans over the railing, waving her beer in the air, “Up here!” she calls.

“Mara!” I shout, trying to pull her back down. She grabs my arm instead, and pulls me up to my feet.

“Hey, ladies!” the other one yells. “Want some company?”

“Come on up!” Mara yells back.

“What are you doing?” I laugh.

“Something is finally happening!” she says under her breath. “Let’s just have fun, okay?”

I bring the bottle to my mouth and finish off half the beer in one gulp. “Okay,” I answer, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. We watch as they climb up the tower to meet us, whispering and laughing, just like we are. Something switches inside of me, in my head and my heart and my stomach—a lightness, a weightlessness takes over me—and I feel the corners of my mouth turn up. “Okay,” I repeat.

Mara repositions her hand on her hip and adjusts her stance a few times, brushing her hair back with the other. As they approach I get a better look. They appear to be our age. Their faces seem soft—unthreatening.

“Hey,” the first one says, pushing his too-long hair behind his ears. “I’m Alex. This is Troy,” he tells us, pointing to the other. Troy raises his hand and says, “Hi.”

“I’m Mara. And this is E—”

“Eden,” I interrupt. No Edy with these guys.

“Awesome,” Troy says, nodding his head with a ridiculous smile. They’re both dressed like they just don’t care. A sort of disheveled, grunge look. I kind of like it. Takes the pressure off, somehow.

Alex looks at us closely and asks, “You two don’t go to Central, do you?”

“No,” Mara offers. “How could you tell?”

“Because Central is full of total douche bags,” the other guy, Troy, answers.

“Except for us, of course,” Alex adds.

“So, what are you guys doing here?” I ask them, which happens to be the best conversation I’m capable of making.

“This is our spot,” Troy answers. “What are you doing here?”

“Celebrating,” Mara says. “My birthday.”

“All right! Well, happy birthday,” Alex offers. “It just so happens we have the perfect birthday present.” He nudges Troy, who reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a small, flat, rectangular silver box. Mara raises her eyebrows at me. We lean in as he opens it, revealing a neat row of tightly rolled joints. “So, can we, uh, join in the party?” he laughs, gesturing to our stash of beer.

Mara smiles and sits down. Alex sits next to her. Then Troy and I sit opposite them. He smiles at me in this peaceful, silly way, and I think he must already be a little stoned. Mara passes around bottles for each of us. And Troy lights up. This sweet, pungent smoke spreads over me like a wave. He exhales and passes it to me. I hold it between my fingers for a moment, considering it.

“What, you don’t smoke?” Troy asks, as if that would be the most absurd thing in the history of the world. Alex sets his phone in the middle of our circle and starts some music.

“I don’t know,” I mumble with a shrug. I look at Mara. Are we really doing this? I try to ask her without words.

“What she means is . . . birthday girl goes first. Right?” she says as she takes the joint from me.

I don’t care if I’m not being cool; I don’t want her to do it.

“Mara—” I start, but I’m too late. She closes her eyes as she inhales, then exhales a stream of smoke. She opens her eyes and looks at me with a smile and a nod. She passes it to Alex, who’s staring at me.

He watches me as he inhales and then passes it to Troy.

“She’s scared,” Alex says, still holding on to the smoke in his lungs, grinning.

They all turn their heads toward me.

“I am not scared,” I lie.

“I feel fine,” Mara tells me. Then she turns to Alex, “I feel really, really fine.” And they start laughing hysterically.

“It’ll help you relax, that’s all,” Troy says softly, passing it over to me again. “Try it. Just go slow.”

I place the paper between my lips and inhale.

“Okay,” Troy instructs me, “now hold it. Just a second. Okay. Let go.”

And I exhale. I pass it to Mara, who’s still laughing. It goes around the circle, from one person to the next, in slow motion.

“How do you feel?” Troy asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, my words jumbled up together. Even I can hear the panic in my voice. “Dizzy, light-headed—”

“Please don’t freak out!” Alex says like he’s annoyed.

“You’re not freaking out,” Troy assures me. “Here, try again.”

I have no idea why I do, but I do. Then Mara takes it from me.

“My heart is racing,” I tell Troy, holding my hand over my chest.

“That’s normal,” he tells me, and he takes my hand and puts it over his heart instead. “See?”

“But your heart’s not racing,” I tell him.

“Neither is yours,” he says, giggling.

“What?” I ask. “That doesn’t even make sense,” I tell him, feeling my mouth spread out into a smile.

“It doesn’t?” he laughs. “I thought it did.”

Suddenly this all feels like the funniest thing that’s ever happened, so I start laughing too, until I can barely breathe.

I feel like one second I look and I see Mara and Alex laughing and the next I look and they’re not there anymore. “Where did they go?” I ask Troy.

“Over there,” he says slowly, pointing down. He’s pushing her on the giant horse swing. They’re laughing slowly.

“Mara?” I yell.

“Hi-ii-iii,” she yells back, waving her arm over her head.

“This is so weird,” I whisper.

“Yeah,” he agrees with a smile, and he lies down, stretching out the length of the bridge.

The next thing I know, I’m opening my eyes, Mara shaking my shoulder. Alex standing behind her, their voices blending together, saying, “Wake up! Get up! Get up!”

“Dude, get up—Troy!” he shouts.

“Edy, it’s three in the morning—we need to get out of here!”

“Oh, man,” Troy mumbles, moving his arm from behind my neck.

I sit up slowly from this total stranger’s arms. “What happened?”

“We all fell asleep,” Mara answers. “Now we have to hurry the hell up and get home before we’re on house arrest until we’re twenty-one!” Mara shouts, pulling on my arm.

We hurry to gather all our things and race down the stairs and across the bridges, holding our shoes in our hands.

“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGod,” Mara mutters under her breath the entire way to the car.

“Bye!” the guys call after us.

“We are so fucked!” Mara yells once we get in the car.

“Okay, calm down. There’s a perfectly good lie that can explain everything. Let’s just think. You said you were staying at my house. I said I was staying at your house. Change of plans. We stayed at Megan’s house instead.”

“Who’s Megan?” she cries as we peel out of the parking lot.

“It doesn’t matter,” I tell her, my mind thinking quickly. “We stayed up late and we were all having a good time until she started being mean and we got in an argument and left. That’s why we’re coming home in the middle of the night. See? Not fucked, okay?”

“You think that will work?” she asks frantically.

“Yes. Just stick to the story and act like it’s the truth. Remember how good you were with the gas station guy?” I remind her.

“Uh-huh,” she murmurs, looking like she might actually cry.

“Same thing. Except easier, because my parents will believe anything. Trust me,” I assure her.

We make it to my house in only eleven minutes. Mara and I tiptoe through my front door and pause, listening for any signs that we might be caught. I silently lock the door behind us and we move to my bedroom as fast as we can. I press my hand gently against my bedroom door so it just clicks into place. I turn around to face Mara, who’s standing in the middle of my bedroom with her hands palms up, her mouth hanging open.

“Did we just seriously pull this off?” she asks slowly, her mouth closing with a grin, grabbing both of my hands in hers.

“I think we did!” I whisper back.

“Holy shit!” Mara squeals, jumping up and down.

“Shh-shh,” I mouth, silently laughing.

We change out of our weed-stenched clothes and into pajamas. I roll out my sleeping bag on the floor as Mara climbs into my bed. I lie down and take a deep breath.

“We are totally badass, you realize that, right?” Mara whispers.

I feel myself grin. “Good night.”